The Word is how God touches Us and We touch God

+The Gospel for today is John’s Christmas story. I know, there’s not a donkey or a manger or a shepherd or a star in sight. There’s no Joseph, no Mary. No baby Jesus. No silent night, No Angels harking. None of that.
But just what is a Christmas story anyway? A Christmas story is a way for us to make sense of our faith. It’s a way to understand that Jesus is God and that God is Jesus.
See…right there it gets really confusing. Doesn’t it? God is Jesus Jesus is God….what?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
It’s easier to understand than you may think. You see, in the beginning, when creation was, well, creating….Jesus was there. But not the Jesus we’ve come to know through the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, not the Jesus of Paul’s many letters…no the Jesus who was there was not the man who is God, it was instead the God who will become Jesus.
Jesus the Divine was there, not Jesus the Man.
Jesus the man came later, because Jesus the man is an instrument used by God to reach us.
 This is where that whole idea of “The Word” comes from. “The Word” is a translation of the Greek concept of Logos. Logos has been defined many ways but in our usage Logos is the discourse---the conversation-- between God and God’s creation. We can’t experience God because God isn’t an old white man sitting on a throne. God is Love, God is Light, God is Peace. God is energy. God is not a person. God is not physical, God is not material. So the Logos, the Word, is how God reaches out to God’s creation. Jesus is this Logos, Jesus is this Word.
Jesus is how God touches us and how we touch God. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about—God reaching out to us?
But, because it’s John’s Gospel, there’s still more to this story. You see not only is this Prelude of John a Christmas story, it’s also a Creation story. John writes:
All things came into being through The Word, and without The Word not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The basic premise of creation stories is that in the beginning God created the light. The very first thing created out of the muck and the mess, the first thing created out of the deep was light.
And with this notion that light was created out of darkness comes one of the cornerstones of John’s theology—that God is the light and that not-God is darkness. It’s as basic as the good guys wearing white hats and the bad guys wearing black hats in those old tv westerns: Light is good. Dark is bad. Light is safe, dark is dangerous. Light is warm, dark is cold.
God is all that is good, “not God” is all that is not good. Jesus is God in the world….God is light, Jesus is in the world, so Jesus is the light of the world.
God is always battling the forces of darkness, because the primordial muck from which creation emanated is always trying to overtake the Good ness that is God.
This light stuff is where that other John, John the Baptist comes in. You see John –the Gospel writer, the evangelist NOT the Baptist---is trying to establish the basic Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus is the Light of the world, to his readers---primarily those philosophical Greeks and the stuck in the old ways Jews of the late first century world.
So John the gospel author introduces his readers to a herald of the light, a witness to the coming of the messiah--John the Baptist. We read:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
And so, here we have a Christmas story all wrapped up in a Creation story, with a touch of Advent thrown in for good measure. This Gospel is trying, in 18 verses, to give us the whole ball of wax in one fell swoop:
God in all of God’s “godness” is intangible, unknowable to us basic humans, so God uses an instrument to reach us, an instrument to engage us in a relationship we can grasp. God does this by taking on flesh in the person of Jesus. Jesus comes to us seemingly as a man just a man, but soon we learn, along with him, that while he is a man he’s also much more. We learn that he is God who has taken on the human form in hopes that we, the regular old humans, will embrace the man and through that embrace, learn to love the God.
So John’s Christmas story doesn’t have a donkey or a manger or a shepherd or a star. His story doesn’t have a Joseph, or a Mary. There’s no baby born in a barn. No silent night, no Angels harking and heralding. Nope, John’s Christmas story has none of that. What it does have is, very simply, a God who wants nothing more than for us to Love one another just as that same God Loves us.
Now where have I heard that before?
Amen.

I Believe--Christmas 2012

I believe. Do you?
I believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, born of a peasant girl and her betrothed, Joseph.
I believe that this was an extraordinary birth in otherwise ordinary circumstances.
I believe that God chose to come among us in this way because God didn’t want to make a big splash.
 I believe God wanted to come to us in a whisper not a shout.
I believe God wanted to ease into living among us, as one of us.
And I believe we  needed to be eased into having God among us, in the flesh.
I believe this was not something to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly. I believe this needed to be entered into cautiously and with restraint.
I believe that God came quietly to live among us, because I believe God really really wanted to know just what it was like to be human.
I also believe that God’s birth in the person of Jesus Christ was so extraordinary in its ordinariness that creation just couldn’t hold back in the restraint God intended.
I believe that the birth of Jesus in that barn…was so glorious that the heaven’s opened up, angels descended and the stars shone extra brightly.
Just like every birth.
Yes I believe that the birth of Jesus was just like every other birth.
You don’t believe me do you?
You don’t think a heavenly host descends to earth singing the praises of a newborn savior each and every time a baby is born?
You mean that the birth of a baby each and every time isn’t a miracle?
You don’t think that the gift of a new life, no matter what the circumstances is an event deserving of awe and wonder?

Here’s what I know from my very limited study of biology but my extensive experience of walking the walk of pregnancy and birth with many friends family members and parishioners. And what I know from my experience of walking the walk of wanting to be pregnant but not being able to conceive. And walking the walk of getting pregnant but not being able to stay pregnant:
Every single pregnancy that leads to a live birth is a miracle.
So much can go wrong, so much does go wrong. Delivering a healthy happy baby is a miracle. Each and every time.
So while we may not think that the world erupts into a chorus of Joy to the World each and every time a baby is born then we just aren’t listening.
You see, Jesus being born to two ordinary people in a somewhat extraordinary circumstance is exactly how the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, God in the flesh needed to come to us.
Because the sacred isn’t only the gold and shiny, the neat and tidy, the all put together in colorful paper and ribbons.
The sacred isn’t only the glorious sunsets, it’s also the rain storms.
The sacred isn’t only the fabulous arias, it’s also the tinny tune of a tone deaf child
The sacred isn’t only on Christmas and Easter.
The sacred is every single day.
The sacred is Creation.
All of it.
The sacred is all that God has created, because all that God creates is beautiful, stunning and miraculous.
All that God creates is priceless
All that God creates is holy
And all that God creates is wonderful.
This is the wonder and the glory of this holy and blessed night: that God came to be among us in the skin and bones of humanity, in the dirt and dust of the wilderness, in the baying, baa-ing, mooing  and clucking of the donkeys, sheep, cows and chickens of that barn. That God came to be in the hearts and minds and souls of each and every one of us gathered here on this silent night.
I believe that God as Jesus Christ was born to Mary and Joseph and that this birth was revealed with a great heavenly host to shepherd’s tending their flock in a nearby field because God is in the ordinary and the mundane, as well as the extraordinary and the magnificent.
I believe that Jesus is born to Mary and Joseph each and every year so that maybe, just maybe, a few more people will come to believe that God loves us—US—so much God just can’t stay distant from us.
I believe in the miracle of Christmas, because I believe in the never-ending, all encompassing love of God, a God who needed, absolutely positively needed to be with us, skin and bones, dirt and dust, baying and mooing and baaing.
I believe in Christmas everyday of every year.
So Merry Christmas today, Merry Christmas Tomorrow, Merry Christmas every single day of your lives.
I believe. Do you?
 Amen.

Mary A Lifetime of God-Bearing Advent IV 2012

Mary is my hero.
Year in and year out, I am utterly blown away by the witness of Mary, the mother of Jesus, his first disciple, and the only person present at the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus…Mary’s little boy.
I love Mary.  But not the Mary of adoration and mysticism. Not the “Holy Mother, ever blessed Virgin.” No, I love Mary, the young woman who was, by all accounts, a faithful servant, a good daughter and well…normal.
Mary was a simple young woman living an ordinary life when, suddenly, her life was turned on it’s ear after a visit from the angel Gabriel.
Now many of you know that I have a thing about angels. And not always good thing. I’m just not sure what to make of them.
First of all they have wings. And for those of you who were around a couple of summers ago when I had a bat in the Rectory you know that I am terrified…. completely and utterly terrified of sharing space with a winged creature. I have no issue with birds flying around outside, far above my head, but when anything larger than a mosquito starts flying around my house, near me? I freak out.
So right there, angels kind of bug me.
And then there’s that whole thing about what an angel is…not human, not divine, but somewhere in between…. Just what is an angel?
All that being said, I do appreciate the role of angels in the history of our faith…but those flapping wings? I prefer my angels to look less like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz and more like Clarence from It’s a Wonderful Life. I am more comfortable with angels who look more like you and me and less like, well…angels….
So that’s why I’m pretty sure I would like Gabriel. I just have a sense that Gabriel would be a more regular type guy, regular enough that his initial appearance to Mary didn’t freak her out.
I envision Gabriel as fitting into the landscape of Mary’s world.
So when he appears at Mary’s door, or when he encounters her at the market or down by the river while she washed clothes or out back as she gathered pomegranates from the bushes, Mary is receptive to him.
Mary receives the message he gives her, outrageous and fantastic as it sounds. Mary receives the message. Mary accepts the message. And then Mary waits. And wonders. And ponders.
Yes Mary is my hero because she was receptive to receiving the Word of God through the angel Gabriel.
Mary’s also my hero because not only did she accept the Word of God through Gabriel she literally BORE the Word of God. Mary, the God-Bearer carried the incarnated God in her womb for nine months. The word of God grew within her until it could no longer be contained and it burst forth, changing the world. Forever.
And Mary’s my hero because after that birth she led the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Messiah, her baby boy…through all the trials and tribulations of childhood.
She nursed him.
She weaned him.
She soothed him when he fell.
She encouraged him as he grew into his role, as he learned that he was, indeed
The Lord of Lords…. the Prince of Peace, the Messiah
And she was there when that role reached its necessary conclusion on that hilltop called Calvary, nailed to that tree.
Yes Mary bore the Word of God as her own flesh and blood and together with him she bore the slings and arrows, the jubilation and the joy of being God in the Flesh, Emmanuel.
But most of all, Mary is my hero because she said yes.
She is my hero because she was open to receiving God and when God asked, she said yes.
Would you? Would I?
How does God ask us to bear the Word of God? And when we are asked, do we say yes?
That’s our task during these days of incarnation, these days of a miracle birth in Bethlehem---to ask ourselves, how has God presented Godself to me? Has God come to us like Clarence?
Or like Gabriel?
Or has God come to us in the neighborhood child who could use a smile.
Or the elderly woman in the grocery store who cannot reach the top shelf?
Or the homeless and the hungry?
The destitute and the depressed?
The lost and the lonely?
Perhaps God has asked us to bear the Word of God while we stood in the voting booth, or while we decide where to spend our money, or when we know a friend or family member is in an abusive relationship.
Maybe God asks us to Bear God’s Word at all times. And in all places.
And maybe, maybe that’s the point of God coming to be among us in the first place…to show us, to teach us that bearing the Word of God is not a once in a lifetime thing, it’s a lifetime thing.
Mary is my hero because Mary’s life was spent, being the God-Bearer. In all that she was and in all that she did.
May we strive to do the same.
Amen.

A Litany for Sandytown

(Adapted from a poem written after the attacks in Oslo and published on July 24, 2011 by http://sarahtellsstories.blogspot.com)

God, there are lots of words we want to say to you,
lots of people we want to pray for with you,
places we want to give into your care.
Hear us as we pray,
Lord in your mercy, be with us all

Today we want to say things to you about Sandy Hook -
we want to say, Why?
What?
We want to say - No!
Lord in your mercy, be with us all

We pray with you for the people of Sandy Hook Elementary,
those who have died.
The children:
Charlotte Bacon,
Daniel Barden,
Olivia Engel,
Josephine Gay,
Ana M. Marquez-Greene,
Dylan Hockley,
Madeleine F. Hsu,
Catherine V. Hubbard,
Chase Kowalski,
       Jesse Lewis,
James Mattioli,
Grace McDonnell,
Emilie Parker,
Jack Pinto,
Noah Pozner,
Caroline Previdi,
Jessica Rekos,
Aveille Richman,
Benjamin Wheeler,
Allison N. Wyatt,
The adults:
Dawn Hochsprung,
Rachel Davino,
Anne Marie Murphy,
Lauren Rousseau,
Mary Sherlach,
Victoria Soto

The family and friends who have lost sisters, brothers,
children, parents, friends ...
the people of Connecticut whose hearts are breaking -
our hearts are breaking with them,
and we know your heart is breaking too.
Lord in your mercy, be with us all

We pray for the emergency services people finding the bodies
Informing the parents and families,
searching for understanding,
while protecting the living.
Lord in your mercy, be with us all

We pray for the person who did this terrible thing, Adam Lanza
for his troubled soul
and we pray for those who are investigating
may calmness and wisdom guide them.
Lord in your mercy, be with us all

We give to you what is your land,
The town of Newtown, the state of Connecticut, our country and our world
may you be known everywhere as peace and love.
may we not forget the children of Sandy Hook and the people of Newtown
in the weeks and months and years ahead, as they heal.
Lord in your mercy, be with us all


Closing Collect:

God of the broken-hearted,
God of the broken heart,
Receive our sighs
too deep for words.
In your time
by your grace
heal us.
In this meantime
hold us
as we weep.
Hold us and rock us
with the rhythm
of your own
grief-struck
quaking
body.
Amen

This is from http://spaciousfaith.com

Advent 2 Yr C 12/9/12 When a Prophet is Finished with us we are different.

+What a way to begin Advent---these readings aren’t the stuff of Christmas carols are they?
Last week Jesus told us to be prepare—that we must stand ready, ready for him to come, in the Second Advent, with great power and glory. It was a tough way to begin Advent, no angel visits to Mary, no sweet prose about a babe in a manger. Today the message doesn’t get any quieter, the image isn’t any sweeter. Today we hear from two prophets—Baruch, speaking to a generation of Babylonian exiles some 1400 years before the time of Jesus and John the Baptist, a   prophet of the first century, preparing the way for Christ. Baruch tells his generation to be ready, to stand up, dropping the dreary existence of captivity and prepare to be freed. John, in today’s gospel, promises release to all who follow him. Release from the despair of the wilderness, relief from the rigors of the Temple, and reprieve from the autocracy of the Empire. Repent, cries John, turn your life around, shed your old ways , for a new way is coming and it’s time to get ready.  Mountains will be laid low, valleys will be filled in and the rough road will be smoothed. According to our two prophets today—Baruch and John-- this shift into the new isn’t easy, it’s not painless.
Obviously, prophets do not come onto the scene quietly. They shake things up; they shout from the rooftops and set us on edge. A prophet doesn’t fit in. A prophet doesn’t tell us what we want to hear, a prophet tells us what we must hear. A prophet is often a pain in our rear. But after a prophet is through with us? Well after an encounter with a prophet, we don’t look at anything the same way.
After a prophet is through with us, we are different.
John didn’t come on the scene quietly, nor did he tell people what they wanted to hear. To many, I’m sure; John was a pain in the patoot! And he wasn’t even the main attraction!
 John the Baptist knew his place, John knew he was simply the opening act for the big show, he was the front man, the advance man for the Messiah. John’s job is to turn us around, to get us to leave the old behind so we can accept the completely new, the utterly different, the new life Christ will provide.  So John, this straggly looking, wild sounding peasant in the wilderness tells us: repent, turn your lives around, open yourself to the new way which is about to arrive.
John was a different breed of prophet, preparing the landscape for a new legacy, a different way—John was on the edge of something big and he was bound and determined to bring as many people with him as possible.
John the Baptist stood between two distinct periods in our Christian history— bridging the prophetic voice of the Hebrew scripture with the new voice to come in the person of Jesus Christ. He was a transitional figure with one eye firmly on the past and one eye firmly on the future. Some may have thought he was a prophet ahead of his time, others may have thought he was just plain nuts, but he knew, he knew he was the new Elijah, paving the way for God’s in-breaking into the world through Jesus Christ.
And he was going to make darn sure  that people would hear his message. A message of both promise and warning.
Promise that the Messiah was on his way and warning that we weren’t prepared!
John is telling us, John is begging us, John is challenging us, let go of the old ways. To drop all that weighs us down and with outstretched arms, lift our faces to the sky and accept the coming of the New World.
A new world full of God’s love.
Should be an easy message to sell, right? We’re all aware that life is more joyful when we allow God’s love to wash over us and guide us...so we should gladly and easily turn our lives around, shedding all that stands in our way, right?
But, of course that’s not what we do…we’re human and it’s human nature to resist change…even when it’s good for us!
Remarkably, even when we’re in a bad situation we have a tendency to stay put, to stick with the status quo. Not because we’re gluttons for punishment but because we’d  rather stick with a scenario we know than change to one we don’t.
The familiar, even when it isn’t good seems less risky than the unfamiliar.
 This is not new.
The people of the Exodus, the people of the Exile all wanted, at one time or another, to return to what they knew, even though it was bad for them, because what they knew was less risky than what they didn’t.
We’re no different.
But to fully receive the miracle in Bethlehem we must take this Advent time of preparation to lower our mountains, fill our valleys and straighten our own crooked roads.
We all have them—mountains of doubt, valleys of anxiety, roads crooked with worry. This is no way to welcome the Jesus, but those mountains, those valleys and those crooked roads can feel insurmountable making it impossible to shed it all and emerge ready to welcome the messiah.
But John the Baptist, in all his railing and ranting, in all his challenges and promises prepares us for this new way, he brings us across the divide from the old to the new. He invites us to emerge from the muddy waters of the Jordan changed, ready to receive God’s embrace of love.
A love born of Mary swaddled in rags, lying in a manger.
So our job this Advent season, amidst all the preparations of trees and gifts, amidst all our roads of worry, valleys of anxiety and mountains of doubt is to repent: to turn our lives from all that weighs us down, from all that distracts us and turn toward the east and with heads raised high and arms outstretched ready to accept the coming of the Lord.
The image isn’t quiet and the message isn’t sweet, but through Baruch and through John we’ll find ourselves in that barn on a silent night, awash in wonder and bowled over by awe.

Advent is a process for us. And for God.

Advent is more than a countdown to Christmas. It’s  more than a mini-Lent.
It’s more than shopping.
It’s about more than Christmas Carols 24/7 on the radio.
Advent is about the Past. Advent is about the Future. Advent is about the Present. It’s a season of looking behind, looking ahead and looking around.
Advent is:
expectant waiting. You know that kind of waiting we do when waiting for someone we love very much. It’s standing at the airport craning your neck to catch the first glimpse of your beloved. That’s expectant waiting.
Advent is hopeful anticipation. You know when you’re opening a present and you think you know what it is, you hope you know what it is….that’s hopeful anticipation.
Advent is cheerful preparation. It’s one thing to clean the house because it NEEDS to be cleaned. It’s a whole other thing to clean the house because you are getting ready for a grand meal, or a big party, or a family reunion. When we’re getting ready for something good, for a special guest? That’s cheerful preparation.
Yes, Advent is a whole lot all on it’s own because in Advent we expectantly wait, in hopeful anticipation, with cheerful preparation, for God to break into our lives. Big time .
You see, God taking on flesh and plopping smack dab into our lives is a REALLY BIG DEAL.
Because when God does this, when God becomes human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, EVERYTHING CHANGES--
Every moment, every place, every thing…..Jesus  changed everything when he came the first time, Jesus will change everything when he arrives the second time and today, on this first day of Advent 2012, Jesus is going to change everything again.
That is, if we let it. See that’s the wondrous and miraculous and stunning thing about the incarnation of God in Christ: it only turns our world inside out and upside down if we allow it to. It only changes everything if we welcome it, if we welcome God in the flesh into our hearts, our minds and our souls. Again and again and again.
That’s why we have a “church year,” why we go through the cycle of Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension each and every year. Because the redeeming work of God through Christ is a process. It is not an event.
It’s always evolving it’s not a one time thing.
It’s a dynamic, alive, “always revealing more” process of bringing Jesus’ message of Loving everyone, no exceptions to fruition. Advent is many things.
On the one hand Advent is about preparing us for the coming of the Christ child, but on the other hand, Advent is about us preparing to do all the work that is still unfinished. It’s about getting ready to do the work we’ve been given to do.
It’s not always easy work.
The world is a mess. Israel continues to arm itself to the max, seemingly goading someone, anyone to take them on.
The war in Afghanistan just won’t quit and the violence there continues to touch us all.
Our economy just can’t get into gear and climate change threatens our very planet.
On a more personal level I know that each and everyone of you has a whole host of worries and concerns on your plate. Job troubles, family issues, relationship problems, health concerns.
Life is challenging, life is scary, life is fragile.
We all deal with these issues differently—sometimes we deny them, sometimes we tackle them, sometimes we avoid them, sometimes we just plain worry about them.
But and here is where our readings for this morning (evening) come into play, it’s when everything seems to be at it’s worst, it’s when everything seems to be at it’s darkest, it’s when the “signs in the sun, the moon and the stars…cause people to faint from fear,” it’s when we can’t seem to find our way out of whatever mess we find ourselves in when, lo and behold, God appears.
Advent is about having hope. Advent is about having hope even when the days are dark and the world feels cold and the future seems precarious.
Advent is about trusting that the light will always follow the dark.
Advent is about knowing---deep down in our gut—knowing that a leaf will sprout from the righteous branch of David.
Advent is about remembering that God isn’t finished: not with us and not with the world.
Creation and redemption are not once and for all,
over and done with acts of God.
God created the world and keeps on actively creating it.
God in Christ acted to redeem the world and God in Christ keeps on actively redeeming it.
As Jeremiah says “. . . he will execute justice and righteousness in the land,” and until that is done,
God is not done.
So as we step into these four weeks of preparation, of waiting, of hoping we must prayerfully open ourselves up to this plain and certain fact: there is more to be done.
As long as God isn’t finished, neither are we. As long as the redeeming work of God through Christ is still working on this world, we must keep working here---in Buffalo New York, at the CGS and the COA---working to bring the light of Christ to all we encounter. Working to BE the light of Christ in this world. Working to make sure that we, in expectant waiting, in hopeful anticipation and in cheerful preparation remain the instruments of the Loving, Redeeming, and still working God who came to be among us over 2000 years ago.
Advent is a process for us and a process for God. You see, God becoming human only works if we accept God into our lives---wholly, fully and totally.
That’s what we’re getting ready for, my friends. We are getting ready to welcome, to accept and to embrace the best guest. Ever.
So let’s continue this journey. Not one of four short weeks but a journey for all time, ending when that righteous branch of David returns, joyously announcing that there is, once and for all and forever, Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward All.

A Different Kind of King

Some of you know that in a few short weeks I am going to be a great aunt. My nephew David and his girlfriend are expecting a baby—a little boy named Oliver.
Perhaps it’s the impending arrival of Oliver, or maybe all the younger children in the parish, but some of those old favorite Disney films are playing in my head. Most notably, The Lion King. It was just a few weeks ago that I quoted the theme song from the Lion King: The Circle of Life. Today I give you Simba’s Song:
“I Just Can’t Wait to be King.” You remember that song---Simba has just been told by his dad, Mufassa, that one day he, Simba would be King. Thrilled by this news, Simba bounds into his evil Uncle, Scar, full of excitement:
[Simba:] I'm gonna be a mighty king! So enemies beware!
[Scar:] Well, I've never seen a king of beasts
With quite so little hair
Scar is a bit incredulous as he looks at this little boy, working on his roar, waiting for his kingdom to come. Scar just can’t imagine him as King.
But Simba? Simba can:
“No one saying be there
No one saying stop that
No one saying see here
Free to run around all day
Free to do it all my way!
Oh, I just can't wait to be king!”
Simba has no problem proclaiming himself as the future King nor does he have any problems imagining just what it means to be King. For lil’ Simba being King means not getting pushed around and doing whatever he wants.
I Just Can’t Wait to be King is a conversation between a King wanna be and his doubtful Uncle.
Today’s Gospel is a conversation between a reluctant King and an even more reluctant, and confused and exasperated Governor—Pontius Pilate.
Today’s Gospel happens on the first Good Friday. Jesus has spent the night in prison and Pilate is torn. He knows this Jesus is a bit odd, but no threat to the empire. On the other hand he’s stirred up a lot of passion in folks. The governor’s job was to keep the Empire’s massive machine of power running smoothly. Offshoot rebellions were to be squelched.
It seemed that the passion around this man Jesus was brewing into a rebellion so it needed his attention. Now Pilate was a man with some integrity-- he wasn’t going to sentence Jesus to death without good reason…so what we hear today is Pilate trying to find “cause.” If one were to claim they were King that would be “cause,” because there was only one King: the Emperor.
But, what makes a King (or a Queen, or an Emperor, or a Pharaoh) after all?
To hear Simba tell it, a King is The Boss. If you look it up, besides being the male monarch of an independent state, King is defined as a person or thing considered to be the best, the most important. In other words, Being King is pretty darn good….if your goal is to be the best, the big cheese, the most powerful.
The problem, of course is that most Big Cheeses, most very powerful people are, at their core, afraid.
Afraid that they’ll lose their power. It seems like those who are in charge, those who hold a lot of power—kings and their ilk---spend a whole lot of time protecting their claim to the throne.
So for anyone to call Jesus King is a big problem. Poor Pilate, he knows that if Tiberius, the emperor, found out there was King wanna be down in Jerusalem, he would FLIP OUT. Pilate had to nip this in the bud.
But there’s a problem. This Jesus won’t say he’s King. He won’t say he wants to dethrone the ruler of the land. He simply doesn’t  give Pilate much to work with. You can’t even say Jesus was a reluctant King. Jesus was, simply put a totally different kind of King.
And therein lies the heart of this Christ the King Sunday. Christ is a totally different kind of King.
The rule of this God in the flesh is something unlike anything else we have ever known. If we forget that, if we look at Christ the King through the lens of this world---then we’ve  missed the boat. Understanding just what Christ as King means is, in a way, our final exam of the church year.
What do we hear, week in and week out? What do I preach week in and week out? What is the fundamental message of our faith?
That what we think we know we need to turn….inside out and upside down.
The reign of Christ as King is all about power. But not the power of Emperors, or Pharaoh or Queens, or Presidents or Prime Ministers.
The Reign of Christ as King is the power given to the downtrodden, the rejected, the sidelined and the outcast.
The Reign of Christ as King  is the power we hold in our hearts when we proclaim that we will respect the dignity of every creature of God, no exceptions.
The Reign of Christ as King is all about giving power to the disenfranchised. The Reign of Christ as King is about distributing power equitably and fairly.
The reign of Christ as King is about a world where everyone, even poor little Mary’s boy from Galilee can take the Power of this world and turn it on it’s ear.
Simba couldn’t wait to be King. And neither can Christ. The difference though is that Simba became king in the old fashioned way, after the death of his father.
The only way Christ can take that throne, the only way Christ can be King of Kings and Lord of Lords is when all of us, each and everyone of us, gives up our focus on the power of this world and turn ourselves over to the power of the next.
Amen.

The GREAT Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. A once a year holiday in the secular world. Too bad for them.
Once a year?….pshaw….
We have Thanksgiving every single week…and not just any ol’ordinary Thanksgiving, it’s a GREAT Thanksgiving. Go ahead, take a look on page 5 of the bulletin. The Great Thanksgiving is the communion portion of our service---when we, a holy people share holy food.
Each and every week we gather around the dining table of our Lord to offer thanks for all that we have and all that we are. Everything. Our blessings and our burdens. Our hopes and our fears. Our happiness and our worries.
The Great Thanksgiving of our Lord doesn’t seek only the good. The Great Thanksgiving of our Lord requests---longs for---everything we have. And all that we are.
We are called each and every week to place it all –our joys and our triumphs, our sorrows and our losses---on this altar. And by giving it all to God we are doing exactly what Jesus is saying in this evening’s Gospel: we are turning it over to God. The whole kit and caboodle. Doing that is an act of true and thorough and full thankfulness.
In a few moments we’ll recite A Litany of Thanksgiving. A Litany where we offer thanks for the good as well as the challenges of life.
I encourage you to pray this litany fervently, honestly and whole-heartedly.
Because God wants it all—every last bit of it. So please, PLEASE give it all to God. Even those things too difficult to express, those things to painful to utter—offer them to God. For when we give them to God—only when we give them to God can we, like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, live in true and full faith.
In your pews are note cards. If you care to write down specific blessings or burdens go ahead. After I sit down I’ll give you a few moments. You may place them in the offering plate to be blessed as part of our Great Thanksgiving where they’ll serve as a physical reminder that God wants it all, every single thing.
So whether you write your blessings and burdens down or you silently pray them during the Litany or you hold them in your heart for another day know that our Great Feast of Thanksgiving: the Holy Eucharist will be here every single week and this—this altar? It’s always ready to accept your gifts. +

Big Faith Turns the World Upside Down November 18, 2012

In the days of Jesus the Temple in Jerusalem was the most magnificent structure anyone had ever seen. Some of the stones were 40 ft long…. JUST ONE STONE. Most of the western wall, plus some of the northern wall, from a later incarnation of the temple, still exists today. Even these remnants, small in comparison to what the disciples are marveling at in today’s Gospel, are pretty impressive. When I touched the Western Wall last January I was moved to tears. It is an amazing and formidable place. To the fishermen, tentmakers and stonemasons from rural Galilee the site must have been equally incredible. But it wasn’t just the site that blew them away, it was Jesus’ outlandish claim that it would be destroyed and rebuilt in three days. It just plain ludicrous.
And ludicrous is exactly what Jesus was going for. Along with awesome, incredible, amazing and unbelievable.
Welcome to pre-Advent, my friends. Years ago, Advent had six weeks, just like Lent, so these two Sundays before the official start to Advent have much the same feel as our Advent readings: lots of apocalyptic, end world imagery, lots of violence, lots of chaos. You see, Advent is all about a beginning emerging out of an end, it’s all about a new creation, it’s all about turning what we know inside out and upside down. Advent is about readying us for the coming of a savior, of The Savior. Advent is about welcoming a new creation.
Now I’ve never given birth but I sure do know an awful lot of people who have and I think I am right in saying that giving birth isn’t pretty. Birthing involves ebbs and flows of pain, fear, hope and peace. Giving birth hurts. And once birth happens, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do. Oh and then there’s that whole utter world changing aspect to bringing a brand new human being, a human being you are responsible for, into the world.
All this apocalyptic literature, the readings from Hebrews, the readings from the 13th chapter of Mark’s Gospel are tools used by the writers of our sacred texts to give us some sense of what the Coming of Jesus meant to the world of 1st century Palestine and what it means to us today.  The coming of Jesus then and the coming of Jesus now is mind-blowing, overwhelming and little bit scary. Because the coming of Jesus blows everything else to bits.
Thanks be to God.
You see what the coming of Jesus blows to bits is the business as usual of this world:
Hatred. Fear. Intolerance. Hopelessness.
What the Coming of Jesus brings to us is a clean slate, a fresh start, a beginning to the creation of a world where Love replaces Hate, Courage replaces Fear, Tolerance, Intolerance, Hope replaces Hopelessness.
But getting there? Getting there is just like childbirth---painful scary messy and at times, overwhelming.
Preparing for the messiah is not for the faint of heart.
It requires perseverance, fortitude, grit, spunk and persistence. It also requires faith. Big Faith.
The kind of Big Faith found in Mary, the mother of Jesus, the kind of Big Faith found in Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, the kind of Big Faith found in Sarah, the kind of Big Faith found in Hannah.
The Big Faith of the matriarchs I just mentioned isn’t big in the usual sense. It isn’t loud, it isn’t flashy, it isn’t all that apparent to the casual observer. What makes their faith Big is the breadth and the depth of it. You see these women really got it. They understood that professing one’s faith means nothing if the faith isn’t lived. They understood that shouting their faith from the rooftops meant nothing if deep within their homes, deep within their souls they weren’t living it.
Hannah had that type of faith. Her life wasn’t easy…. each and every time her husband made the obligatory animal sacrifice at the temple she was subject to the disdain and the disgust of his other wife---the one he didn’t love so much, but the one who was fertile. If you’ve ever wanted—desperately wanted---to have a child and were unable too you know the anguish, the deep in your gut anguish of not being able to do so. That was the anguish of Hannah.
When confronted with such a burden, such anguish you have two choices: bitterness or grace.
Hannah displayed some bitterness early on in today’s reading but she seemed to have turned that around fairly quickly when she decided, once and for all, to turn the whole mess over to God. It is a show of great grace, it is an example of  Big Faith when Hannah, assumed to be a drunkard by Eli, stands up for herself—and her faith—by telling Eli that what he assumed was drunkeness was, in reality fervent and faithful praying. Hannah, in the same vein as the Woman with the Hemorrhage and the Woman at the Well---very familiar stories we heard earlier this year in Mark’s Gospel--- teaches the judgmental male in the story a thing or two.
That’s actually what makes faith Big. Faith is Big when those who witness it are changed by it. Eli was changed by Hannah’s faith, Jesus was changed by the faith of the woman at the well, the woman with the hemorrhage and the woman who birthed him, to name a few.
So welcome to this season of pre-Advent, the season of expectation, the season of apocalypse, the season when Big Faith comes to us in the unexpected person of a peasant baby who turns everything, from that magnificent temple to you and me, upside down and inside out.
Amen.

From the musical The Lion King we hear: 

“From the day we arrive on the planet

And blinking, step into the sun

There's more to see than can ever be seen

More to do than can ever be done

There's far too much to take in here

More to find than can ever be found

But the sun rolling high

Through the sapphire sky

Keeps great and small on the endless round

It's the Circle of Life

And it moves us all

Through despair and hope

Through faith and love

Till we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the Circle

The Circle of Life” 

(Elton John and Tim Rice)

This past week had three of the most under-appreciated days in the church year: All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day—three days when the veil between this life and the next, between the living and the dead is lifted just a bit. Three days when we laugh in the face of death, when we remember those who have gone before, when we celebrate the legacy they have left behind. I think these days are underappreciated because we all struggle with death… we fear it, we do everything in our power to prevent it…..but ….this is always a losing proposition. We lose this battle because death is universal and death is inevitable. People are born, people live and people die. 

But this circle of life, the reality of life and death, is not something to be feared, it is something to be celebrated. Celebrated because death has been defeated….once and for all... through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Jesus looked death in the eye and death blinked. 

Each and every baptism is a recreation of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our baptisms defeat death. Our baptisms give us eternal life. 

A baptism offers us a glimpse into that very circle of life so emblematically etched in our brains by the song written by Tim Rice and Elton John and so memorably heard in the Lion King. In baptism we are put on that winding path that takes us through despair and hope, through faith and love until we rest in the arms of our God, taking our place among that great cloud of witnesses that populate the heavenly banquet, a seat at which each and every one of us is guaranteed.

This week at Good Shepherd we took our own journey through this Circle of Life. We had a funeral and this morning, three baptisms. It was fitting that we bade farewell to Norma McIntosh on All Souls’ Day and it’s fitting that this All Saints’ Sunday morning we baptize (d) LJ, Riley and Caylee…because the path around the Circle of Life is made up of death and birth, beginnings and endings, alpha and omega.

Any community---our families, our neighborhoods, our churches, our world----is part of this great circle. Things begin, things end. New people come into these communities, old people depart. 

All Saint’s Sunday is a day to remember and this year especially, a day to look ahead. All Saints day is a day when the open veil between this world and the next allows us to consider where we’ve been and where we are headed. 

The Great Cloud of Witnesses—the saints in heaven---represent where we’ve been. 

Pause for a moment. Take a good look around this place. The windows, the woodwork. Look at the altar—think of all the hundreds, the thousands of times the Eucharist has been celebrated atop this gorgeous table, think of all the caskets, all the urns that have been honored right here. Look at this font---how many people have had the waters of baptism poured over them—babies and children young adults and older adults alike. This place is full of history, full of memories, full of the people who built it into what it is today. [For use at Ascension:This place has both glory and struggle in its past, and we have struggle and glimpses of glory in our present. Our forebears know what it is to struggle, to dream, to hope and to worry]

On a day like this we are to honor those people, honor each and every one of these Holy Witnesses …people who have entrusted this place to us. 

To all of Us. 

It’s quite the responsibility. Just how are we to honor them? By doing what we’re doing: by baptizing new members, by welcoming the stranger, by reaching out to the needy, by loving one another. When we do that: when we love one another like Christ loves us, then we are building something---we are building a community of saints, earthly saints, folks just like you and me who love this place, love one another and long to give this church—its people, its purpose, its past, its present and its future the very best that we can.

So as we [For use at Ascension and 8 am: renew our baptismal promises remember all those who’ve been washed in the waters of our fonts, remember all those whose final journey was taken from this space, remember all those who have come before, HONOR all those who will come after as we say, Welcome, welcome to our circle, our glorious, wondrous circle of life] baptize Caylee, Riely and LJ into this, our community of earthly saints, we say; welcome, welcome to our circle, our glorious, wondrous circle of life. 

Thank You God, for Cancer

****The Communications officer for The Episcopal Church, Neva Rae Fox asked me to write a personal remembrance about my experience with cancer and my faith. Using a homily I delivered on Thanksgiving Eve, 2010 as a template, this is the essay I wrote, which was published in the Huffington Post (Religion page) on 4 October 2012.

I am an Episcopal priest serving two congregations in Buffalo, New York. Two years ago this Thursday, October 4, 2010, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

My prayer, as I was listening to the doctor say the words, “invasive, lobular carcinoma,” came suddenly and clearly: “Gracious God be with me through this journey, allow me to walk it with dignity and grace. And help me to be grateful, whatever may be.”

Thanks be to God, that prayer was answered—and then some.
As I awoke in the recovery room at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo I was so overwhelmed, so overcome with gratitude that the only prayer I could utter through the tears was “thank you.”

Thank you.

Thank you for the presence of a world class cancer institute in my backyard.

Thank you for the newly arrived surgeon, who full of smarts and compassion, full of determination and grace, removed the cancer from me and painstakingly poked and prodded until she was sure—absolutely, positively sure—that all of the cancer was gone. That anything that looked or felt suspicious was removed. That the margins were checked, double checked and triple checked. That lymph nodes were felt and if not absolutely normal in texture and appearance, were also removed.

Thank you, God, for the community of family and friends huddled in that waiting room who sat for hours, praying, laughing, crying and worrying. Hoping for the best, fearing the worst and believing. Believing that whatever the outcome, they, through the grace of God, would help me get through it all.

Thank you God for the two communities of faith I serve —people who prayed me through that day, who prayed in the days leading up to it and all the days that followed. A community of love that walked with me in good times and in bad, who rejoiced with every victory and lamented every set back. A community whose trust in the peace of God, truly surpasses all understanding.

Thank you God for faith. For the indescribable, ever present belief that whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure comes from the love of God, poured out for us through Jesus Christ. (Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians).

Thank you, God, for cancer.

Yes, thank you for cancer.

Because of cancer I learned lessons I didn’t know I needed to learn. Because of cancer I discovered a depth of love, faith and gratitude I never knew existed. Because of cancer, I learned that bad news is best handled when infused with the Good News. The Good News of Faith, the Good News of Love, the Good News of Gratitude.

There are thousands upon thousands of people who are diagnosed with breast cancer each and every year. Not all the outcomes are as good as mine. People die, people suffer, people mourn. Children grow up without mothers, spouses grow old alone, friends are left with holes in their hearts.

Cancer is not for sissies, cancer is not fun, cancer stinks. But, through the grace of God and the power of prayer and the faith of a community, cancer made me a better priest, a better pastor, a better person.

On October 18, 2012, I, along with two sister priest and a deacon, all of us breast cancer survivors, will lead an open service of Healing, Hope, Gratitude and Remembrance for all those affected by Breast Cancer. The service will take place at the Diocese of Western New York Ministry Center. People of all faiths or no faith are invited. We will sing, we will shout “hallelujah,” we will lament. For Breast Cancer, though it has personally given me much, has taken way too much from far too many.

Breast Cancer is treatable, and early detection is the key. In my family alone five have been diagnosed early enough to be treated quickly and in some cases, aggressively. It has worked. So ladies, get those mammograms, do self-exam and, if you hear the news I heard two years ago, may you, through the power of pray and the fellowship of community, be filled with gratitude and health, all the days of your life.

--The Rev. Catherine B. Dempesy
The Rev. Catherine B. Dempesy has been an Episcopal priest for four years. Currently she serves as the rector of two historic parishes in the city of Buffalo: The Church of the Good Shepherd in the Parkside neighborhood and the Church of the Ascension in the Allentown neighborhood. Prior to her work as priest, Cathy worked as a licensed clinical professional counselor in the state of Illinois, specializing in community mental and addiction services for women and their children. Cathy and her partner, The Rev. Deacon Lucinda “Pete” Cornell, live with their three dogs, two goats and two donkeys in the city and in rural Niagara County, north of Buffalo.

Open those hands, unclench those teeth and let Me in. 14 October 2012, Yr B

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” This is the punch line to Jesus’ parable for today but instead of it being a referendum on being wealthy, I think it’ a referendum on our open-ness, our willingness to accept God into our lives 100%.
Most of us receive communion like this: [open hands] and like this [tip chalice to mouth]. Have you ever tried to receive communion like this? [clench fists] [clench mouth]
I think it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for us to receive the gifts of God through clenched teeth, clenched hands and clenched hearts.
To receive the Gifts of God, freely given for us, we must be open, we must be receptive, we must be willing.
Willing to let go of everything: our fear, our worry, our doubt and, as Jesus told the young man in today’s Gospel, our possessions.
Everything. We must let go of everything in order to fully and completely receive God. Because without open-ness and willingness, the Gifts of God will fall to the floor, discarded, unused, unappreciated.
When the young man heard this, indeed when Peter and the rest of the disciples heard this from Jesus they were very very sad. [Our translation this morning says they were shocked, but a more accurate translation is sad, very sad].
It’s easy to think that they’re sad because it means they have to give up the stuff they like—kind of like when folks give up chocolate for Lent—but I don’t think that’s it at all. I think they’re shocked, they’re sad because they realized, deep down, that no matter how much they said they loved Jesus, no matter how much they insisted that they had turned their lives over to the care of God, they really hadn’t.




Because to completely turn our life over to God, to completely believe all that Jesus is saying, to be willing to live as God wants us to live, we must discard all that stands in our way.
When Jesus tells the young man to sell everything, give money to the poor and then follow him he isn’t telling him to become destitute, he isn’t telling him that having stuff---even being wealthy is BAD, he’s telling him to get rid of all the stuff that weighs him down, all the stuff that gets in the way. Jesus is saying, open those hands, unclench those teeth and let me in.
Jesus is telling the young man and his disciples and us that what stands in the way of us inheriting the kingdom of God, are our attachments. To make his point Jesus references the material attachments the young man had---his stuff—but if you read more carefully, if you consider the text more fully what Jesus is suggesting isn’t a pauper’s existence, not a life of scarcity but a life of richness, a life of abundance, a life of blessing.
A life where we remember all our blessings flow from God. A life where, before all else, we thank God and we trust God.
We thank God for all that we have and we trust God to help us through the worry and the doubt and the clenched hands and teeth of life in our world, a world with an uncertain economy, a world with lots of debt, a world where fear is splashed on the front pages each and every day. You see it these things--the worries, stuff that awakens us in the middle of the night, the things that cause our teeth to clench and our hands to wring—these things blot out all the blessings we know are ours: all those we love, our church, our faith, our God.
Which is precisely Jesus’ point. Those things that close us up and shut us down; those things that distract us, those things that color all that we do: the worries of our lives---these are the things that keep us from entering into the fullness of God’s Love.
It’s what I’ve been preaching for weeks now, it’s what has been weighing on my heart even longer: when our fear takes center stage, we block out God. When our worry takes center stage, we block out God, when our fretting takes center stage we block out God.
I say it again and again and again: God’s love is abundant, it is expansive, it is never ending and it is available to us, all of us, all the time, no matter what.
But…hear what I’m saying, it’s available to us. Available. We can have these endless, boundless, overflowing blessings, if we AVAIL OURSELVES OF IT.
To avail ourselves of it, to receive the gifts of God, requires our willingness and our openness…. but when we live in a constant state of fear, of scarcity, of worry, we cannot receive the gifts, we aren’t availing ourselves of the gifts, we are blocking the blessings.
And when we block the blessings it’ll be easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle then for us to rest in the abundance of God.
Jesus gave us this parable for the same reasons he gives us all the parables: to turn our thinking inside out and upside down. To make us question everything, to make us confused, to make us dizzy to cause us to lose our way.
Because our way is, more often than not, the way of this world. And the way of this world leads us to a place of worry, a place of scarcity, a place of loss. God’s way, the way that seems so illogical, the Way that at times seems so impossible, the Way that, frankly, at times seems down right irresponsible is the Only Way.
This week marks the beginning of our stewardship campaign: Praise God from Whom All Blessings flow.
This year you won’t see any thermometers, you won’t hear us speak about how many pledging units we need or how much we need you to pledge. This year we are focusing on how we---as a community of faith and as individuals have been richly blessed by God and we will acknowledge that all that we have, all that we are is because of God—for everything EVERYTHING comes from God.
This year is, simply, a blessings drive. This year we trust that, as a community, we’ll act  as Jesus has taught us: we’ll detach from worry, detach from doubt, detach from sadness. This year we’ll open our hands, unclench our teeth and praise God, from whom all our blessings flow.
Amen.

Sowing the Legacy of Francis, Reaping the Gifts of God October 7, 2012

Today we go off script for a week as we take a break from our reading of Mark’s gospel and pause to honor the life and legacy of St Francis. Most of us know Francis as the great lover of animals, the patron saint of pet blessings and gardens the world over, but there’s a lot more to Francis than just his love of plants and animals.
He was a real-live person of faith. He put his money where his mouth was. Or, in this case, he put his father’s money away and turned his back on wealth and privilege to live with the exiled and excluded of the world: the poor, the sick, the needy. His tremendous faith attracted many followers in 13th century Italy and soon an order of monks was established in his name, and not too long after that, an order of nuns was also formed, both following his rule of life. The Franciscan rule of life is pretty simple and is aptly summed up in the prayer attributed to Francis (although written by a follower several generations after his death-- if you care to follow along turn to pg 833 of the BCP):

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
It’s a powerful prayer that, I think, exemplifies the spirit of Francis and gives us all a roadmap for living faithful Christian lives.
You see we ARE God’s instruments on this earth. We’re stewards of God’s creation, caretakers, oversee-ers, nurturers of what God has entrusted to us. And as vigilant and loyal stewards we are called to be more than bystanders, more than spectators. We are called to be involved, we are called to get our hands dirty, we are called to leave creation in better shape than we found it, because that’s what good stewards do.
Francis was a great steward of creation and, by following the directives of this simple prayer, we can be too.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love.
There’s a lot of hate in our world—there’s the big hates: religious, social and cultural intolerance resulting in the killing of thousands upon thousands the world over: the murder of girls by the Taliban for wanting an education, a gay man in Uganda lynched for expressing his identity with honesty,  Christians killing Muslims, Jews killing Christians, Muslims killing Jews all in the name of God--there are big capital H hates in our world. We must pray for all that hate to stop, we must pray for the victims, we must pray for the perpetrators. But there are also lots of other more subtle hates going on. Some right in our back yard. There’s the ever-present issue of bullying, evident in our schools and on our playgrounds, but also playing out in work places and at the family dinner table. Anywhere someone uses their position of power to intimidate, threaten, demean or demoralize a person---child or adult---bullying is occurring.  It used to be said that bullies could be stopped if we ignored them. But as we’ve learned in the past year, since the death of Jamey Rodemeyer and the witness of so many others is that bullies need to be confronted by those of us sitting here today. We must identify and name the bullying, we must become more than bystanders we must be sowers of Love.
For where there is hatred, we must sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon;
we make mistakes. We hurt others. And others hurt us. When we’ve been hurt we must learn to forgive. Not forget, but forgive. Pardoning someone means we stop punishing them. It doesn’t remove the hurt, it doesn’t excuse the hurt, but it stops the cycle in it’s tracks. Our burden is lessened when we off load the piles of resentment we carry around. Where there is injury, sow pardon.
Where there is discord, union---have a relationship that needs mending? Try mending it…if it can’t be mended, if it’s too risky to mend it then move on….stop feeding the discord, stop opening the wound…..
where there is discord, sow union.
 Where there is doubt, faith;--we all have doubt. Anyone of faith has times of doubt…but, as I’ve mentioned before when you’re feeling faithful, carry the doubt of those feeling faithless. You see, by carrying the burden of doubt on your broad shoulders of faith, you’re giving that other person a chance to see faith in action. Seeing faith at work is the surest way of finding one’s way back to it.
Where there is doubt, sow faith.
Where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

Our job, as Christians is to shine the light of Christ wherever we go, to help those in the depths of despair know that there is a way forward, there is light at the end of the tunnel there is at least one person in the world who, through their own acts of prayer and service, cares that you are hurt, that you are mournful, that you are sad.
 Where there is darkness, sow the light of Christ.
 Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Folks, this prayer isn’t simply a suggestion, this prayer is more than a guide, this prayer is deeper than platitudes. This prayer is the Gospel message. This prayer is always the way to the Good news. This prayer is the heart and soul of our faith journey. These words are our marching orders. Let’s get busy sowing the legacy of Francis and reaping the gifts of God.   Amen.

[1] This idea was gleaned from the writings of Jaimie Marzullo, “Writings from the City Line,” firstcityline.wordpress: CALL TO ACTION: HIGHER STANDARDS AGAINST BULLYING. WHO CAN YOU SAVE?

September 30, 2012, 8:17 pm

A Community of Prayer tills God's Garden of Love 9.30.12

This Thursday is the second anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. Last Tuesday, I had my regularly scheduled check up at Roswell—scans and meeting with my oncologist. I received excellent news, as there is no sign of new disease, thanks be to God. I tell you this because a) I’m pretty excited and b) I learned more about the power of prayer the past two years than 50+ years of being a faithful Christian, 3 years of  seminary and four years as priest.
Prayer is incredibly powerful. Does it, as James says, heal the sick? Well combined with the work of my team at Roswell, your prayers certainly helped me heal. Because through your prayers I was strengthened and emboldened to do what needed to be done and endure what needed to be endured.
But this sermon isn’t about me.
It’s about us. It’s about our communities---separate and jointly---and what we can do, together, for one another.
It’s about the power of prayer. It’s about the power of community; it’s about the power of God that spreads among us, between us and through us. It’s about what we can do on behalf of God, as a community of faith, as a community of prayer.
In our reading from Numbers, the Israelites are whining, Moses is complaining and God is exasperated. The Israelites are tired of wandering and the lure of the Promised Land has lost it’s luster while the tribulations of captivity in Egypt doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Besides that, they’re really sick and tired of manna, longing for some meat, fish, onions and garlic. They’re fed up. And Moses is overwhelmed saying: “I can’t bear this people on my own. They’re too heavy for me.”
They’re too heavy for me, God. Gimme a hand. But, instead of taking the burden on God’s own Divine shoulders, God asks Moses to bring in 70 elders of the community upon whom God will place the power of prophecy. In other words, God delegates.
God realizes that what makes this whole faith thing work well is community. Especially, a community of faith that’s committed to each other and God through acts of kindness, acts of charity, acts of love.
I think, in our own communities of faith, we can forget this responsibility to and for one another. As members of the Church of the Ascension, as members of the Church of the Good Shepherd, as members of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York, as members of the Episcopal Church herself, as members of the Anglican Communion, as members of the one holy catholic and apostolic faith we have responsibilities, we have duties, we have promises to make and promises to keep. First and foremost, of course, is to love our God with all our heart all our mind and all our soul, the second is like unto it: to love your neighbor as yourself.
To give to our neighbors that which we long for ourselves…
What do you long for? What do you dream for? What do you, in the deep recesses of your soul, desire? Because what I know is that when we dig deep, when we get real honest with ourselves and with our God, those material things we want—better finances, a new job, a new car an iPhone 5…..are not the things we really desire. What we desire is so much more intangible—what we desire is heartfelt. Desire fuels longing and for most every person, what we long for is love—unconditional always available, no strings attached love.
Love. The source of all Love is, of course, God. But as God taught Moses in our first reading this morning, God is not interested in being the singular source of Love for everyone. Now hear me clearly---God Loves each and everyone of us utterly. Fully. Without exception…. but what God is teaching us is that God’s Love grows, strengthens expands and intensifies when it is shared. When the singular source of all Love, God, inspires, encourages, enables and emboldens each and every one of God’s children to be a conduit of that Love . To be God’s instrument of Love to all whom we encounter.
It’s a fairly simple formula: we, as humans, desire community, and as recipients of God’s love we desire a community where this Love is understood, accepted, celebrated and sanctified. Within our communities of faith, this Love of God, this Love from God this Love that IS GOD is nurtured and shared and, through this sharing, it is   Strengthened.
Obviously, God’s love in and of itself is strong. But what we learn, when we are active members of the Body of Christ is that this Love becomes stronger, this Love becomes more vibrant, this Love becomes MORE when it is embraced, cherished and shared.
God tells us:
 Feeling my Love? Share it.
Longing for my Love? Receive it from another.
Can’t feel it? Can’t find it? Trust that someone else is carrying it for you, that someone else is holding it until such a time as you can receive; until such a time you can feel it until such a time you can carry it.
God’s Love needs community to reach it’s full potential.
God’s Love needs us.
And so, my sisters and brothers in Christ, communities of faith with grand traditions alone and with new traditions forming through our covenant, what do we do? How do we strengthen God’s Love?
Feed the hungry? Sure, that’s always a good idea.
Clothe the naked? You betcha.
Stand against injustice and respect the dignity of every single human being? Absolutely.
But….before you do any of those noble and necessary things, before we embark on our collective work toward these goals we must first and foremost:
Pray for each other.
What I began to learn so clearly two years ago and what I believe is fundamental to the health of every community of faith is: Prayer. Intentional prayer for one another is vital, it’s life giving and it’s the work of God.
Last week I asked Good Shepherd’s vestry to pray for each and every member of our parish. I sent out parish lists with a formula for how the list could be split up so that every member is prayed for by each vestry-person every single week.
I encourage all of us to take up a similar practice, because a community of prayer is a community that is tilling the garden of God’s love.
 Beginning next week, you’ll notice names of parish families in the bulletin. I ask that you take your bulletins home and pray for those listed there. The names will change each week and then once we are through the parish list we will begin again.
Let us pray
'Gracious God today I pray for our two communities of faith, linked through your love in Covenant. Guide, protect and nourish us, as we share Your Love with each other through our prayers, offered in Jesus’ name. Amen.’

Amen.

A Faith of Many Questions and One Answer 9.23.12

When I was studying for my counseling degree I took a class on Rational Emotive Therapy---the theory behind this therapy goes something like this: sometimes, when beset by fear and anxiety we’re being irrational. In our minds we may blow the perceived “risks” of a certain behavior way out of proportion.
The instructor had us do an exercise to learn more about this theory. We were to identify something we found scary and then  deliberately go out and do it. Now we weren’t supposed to do anything actually dangerous---like walking a tightrope or getting into a cage with a hungry tiger---just regular everyday things that caused irrational fear. What I chose to deal with was my fear of appearing incompetent so my assignment was to pull into a self-serve gas station, get out and ask another customer to show me how to pump the gas. To publicly admit that I didn’t understand a basic every day task, made me really uncomfortable. In my mind, it made me look incompetent.
It made me feel vulnerable.
Asking questions puts us in a vulnerable position because to ask a question is admitting that we don’t know something.  That we need help. Any animal, human beings included, avoid vulnerability. It’s perceived as a weakness—a weakness that can be used by an adversary. In the animal kingdom, vulnerability is a death sentence! For humans, it may not mean death, but it sure can make us nervous.
We live in a “knowing” culture. Knowledge is The Thing. We know A LOT and we’re learning more and more all the time. The genome project is mapping DNA allowing researchers to discover the gene mutations that cause various and sundry types of cancers, Parkinson disease, MS, diabetes etc.
Our life events are shared and re-shared over social media in real time. We know what we know and what we don’t know, immediately and publicly.
 “Knowing” is power, not knowing is weakness and admitting we don’t know is risky, counter-cultural and to many folks, unthinkable.
“Jesus was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.”
They did not understand and they were afraid to ask him. They were confused.
You see, Christianity is confusing, it can sound   irrational. It really makes no logical sense:
a young boy from a rather unremarkable family grows up and is discovered to be the Messiah—the Son of God, the author of our salvation. A regular guy, from a regular town: The Son of God. And not only is he the Son of God he goes around TELLING people this. He’s also feeding thousands out of nothing, curing the sick, raising the dead and generally blowing everyone’s mind. Freaking them out. Scaring them.
Scaring them because who he was, what he was doing and what he was predicting would happen  didn’t make any sense..
It’s as difficult to understand now as it was then.
Jesus is spending this part of Mark’s gospel preparing his disciples for what is to come. He’s readying them for the final trip to Jerusalem, his arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection. He’s preparing them for what we often proclaim without really thinking about: he is going to die and then through his rising to life again, destroy death forever, giving each and every one of us the same promise: our bodily death doesn’t end life, it changes it. We are, by virtue of our baptism, assured of everlasting life.
We can forgive the disciples their confusion, their mis-understanding and disbelief.
What Jesus is saying still sounds ridiculous irrational and impossible.
Yet here we are, believers in this very thing.
Do we understand it? No.
Do we have to understand it to believe it? No.
As a matter of fact understanding has nothing to do with it.
I stand before you today, your priest, your rector, your, as Marje Torrell calls me, spiritual leader and guide to say, I don’t understand it, I can’t explain it.
Yet, each and every day I awake in sure and certain trust that what God has given us through Jesus the Christ is The Way The Truth and The Life.
Each and everyday as I live out my life as priest I proudly, loudly and clearly proclaim,
 “I believe.” I believe in the unbelievable. I believe in the incomprehensible. I believe in the irrational. I believe in God. I believe God came to live among us Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus  was nailed to a cross and died. I believe he lay among the dead for two days and on the third day I believe he rose from that grave, exited that tomb and walked among us again.
I believe he ascended to heaven where, as part of the Holy and Undivided Trinity he walks among us still. I believe all of this without knowing how. But unlike my irrational belief that asking for help at the gas station would be too awful to bear, our faith encourages our questions, our faith allows for our confusion.
Our faith expects our disbelief.
What our faith doesn’t tolerate so well though is failing to admit our questions, our confusion, our doubt.  This is why Jesus asks us to have faith like a child. A child freely and openly asks the tough questions---why do people die? Why do we get sad? Why is the sky blue? Why why why why?
The author of our faith always wants us to ask why….. why is there pain and suffering in the world, why is my heart broken, why is my child ill----
My prayer for us today is that we’ll approach our faith with the same innocence as the children in our midst.
For it is only through the absolute open and honest vulnerability of a child that we can fully live our faith. Because when we start considering our faith from a rational adult 21st century Culture of Knowing stance, we lose the ability to simply and plainly Believe.
Our faith isn’t a faith of no questions, it is a faith of one answer. And that one answer is God. Through God all things are possible. With God all things are doable. From God all blessings flow.  Amen.

Old Dogs and Saviors Can Learn New Tricks Proper 18, Yr B

I love dogs. But I sure don’t want to be called one. Really, who would? Is there a way to make Jesus’ rebuke to the Gentile woman in today’s Gospel acceptable, palatable…ok?
Not really. Jesus was tired, he was cranky, he was confused and, quite possibly he was, in this case, prejudiced.
In other words, he was human.
When we encounter Jesus this morning he’s coming off the extensive debate with the Pharisees over cleanliness practices we heard last Sunday.  Yep, he’d JUST said that all the worry about cleanliness and purity meant nothing if you were intolerant, prejudiced and separatist.
Clearly exhausted, worn out and irritable Jesus retreats to the north, way past Nazareth, bordering on Gentile territory. He was a long way from home and, he hoped, a long way from the throngs of people needing this, demanding that, judging this and chastising that. He was looking for a break.
So perhaps he can be excused for being cranky, perhaps we can forgive his lack of couth. But to look this devout and desperate woman in the eyes---although you know what?  He probably didn’t look at her, for he was so disgusted and annoyed I doubt he gave her more than a sideways glance.—but, regardless, to say to this woman “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs," can only be considered crass, rude and hurtful.
Seemingly un-phased, the Syro-Phonecian woman (a fancy word for saying she wasn’t Jewish and she wasn’t from Judea or Galilee)  doesn’t back down and calmly, yet firmly, makes her case. She calls Jesus out and he listens. And he learns.
While Jesus was “caught with his compassion down,” this woman was caught with her theology way way up, responding to Jesus’ rebuke by saying, “Sir even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” In other words, she says, God has promised God’s Love to all, to everyone, no exceptions. It’s the message you’ve been preaching, Lord; it just isn’t the message you seem to be hearing. And, she goes on to say, I don’t need much, because even a crumb JUST a CRUMB of this Divine Love will be enough. It’s that potent.
This woman, an outcast, a foreigner, is unclean and impure, according to the traditional Jewish faith of Jesus. But, and this is the point Jesus had just made with the Pharisees--this woman is also a God-loving, God-respecting person of faith. A beloved, adored, faithful, child of God.
She’s also a teacher. A very good teacher. And one from whom Jesus learns a vital lesson.
You see Jesus was learning as he went along. The full goal of his mission---of the job he had been given to do----wasn’t clear to him at first. Some would say, and I would agree, that Jesus wasn’t clear about the full breadth of his mission, of his call, until that long and lonely night in the Garden on the Thursday of Holy Week. So when he retreats to the border of the familiar by traveling into Gentile territory, into the unknown, he was still figuring out just who he was and what he was supposed to do. A lot of what he learned didn’t come from ancient scrolls or from other rabbis’. You see, Jesus learned by doing, by living and by listening. Jesus wasn’t able to lay out the steps and stops of his three-year mission at the outset, he needed to grow into his ministry, grow into his role, grow into his tasks.
Just like us. When you turned 21 did you know everything you needed to know to be an adult? For those of you who are parents, did you know everything about child rearing the day your child was born?
Did I know all there was to know about being priest on my ordination day?
No way.
We’re always learning, always growing, always making mistakes, learning from them and moving on.
As long as we’re alive, we’re growing. As long as we’re alive, we’re changing. That’s a fact of the human condition—we’re always changing, we’re always growing, we’re always learning.
Whether we admit it or not.
 We all know people who decide on how things out to be and refuse to move from that spot. We all know people who take their opinion and make it the Gospel truth for their life, refusing to budge, refusing to listen to reason, refusing to admit that what was once true for them, may no longer be. We all know people who spend an inordinate amount of energy REFUSING to budge, REFUSING to grow, REFUSING to learn.
These are unhappy, unfulfilled and bitter people. They are people who, although they technically are still alive, stopped “living” a long time ago.
That’s what makes this Gospel reading, for all its jarring language, gorgeous. For in it we see our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, open himself up to growth, we see Jesus the teacher being taught by the “other”, the mother who needed to get help for her daughter. Did she wake up that day determined to have a theological sparring match with the hottest preacher around? I doubt it. More likely this woman woke up that day, looked at her tormented daughter and realized she was out of options. She had done everything she could do in her own power to bring her daughter relief. She had gone to the doctors and the religious leaders of her town. She had taken the advice of her elders, she had prayed to her God for help. And on this day, the day she spars with Jesus, this woman had thrown all caution to the wind because her little girl needed help and she was bound and determined to get her the help. No matter what. Like any parent, she wasn’t going to be ignored, and she certainly wasn’t going to let an insult or two get in the way of her undying, unfailing, unending love for her daughter.
Her insistence, perseverance and wisdom convicted our Lord. She convicted him with his own words and his own teachings.  She showed him, she reminded him, she taught him, that God’s love is so overwhelming, so extravagant, so endless that even a crumb of this Love, even a morsel of this Grace, even a mustard seed of faith, will give sight to the blind, sound to the deaf and a lesson to a Savior.  Amen.

The Horse of Faith Must Lead the Cart of Rules

+It may surprise you to know that as a child I was terribly shy, had school phobia and was basically afraid of my own shadow. It was a tough way to grow up and although you may not believe it, anxiety remains something I live with day in and day out. The difference is, I have developed coping strategies, which help me manage the symptoms. One of those strategies is learning what the lay of the land is before I embark on something new. As a young professional looking for work, I would drive to the site of an interview the day before so I could scope out the route, look at the parking lot and get a sense of how long it would take me to get to the interview and how to get into the building etc.
When I was traveling to Israel earlier this year I poured over the website of the places we would be visiting, to get an idea of what it would be like. I don’t like surprises; I like to know what I’m getting into. It’s one of the reasons I like rules so much. I may not follow them all the time, but I like to know what the rules are before plunging in. Knowing what the expectations are—knowing what is acceptable and what is not---is a coping strategy I utilize to manage my chronic anxiety. It works and my life got a lot easier once I figured this out.
That’s what rules, expectations, guidelines do for us…. they help us to manage our behavior so that nothing gets out of hand. My checking out the lay of the land before I go to an unfamiliar place is a functional coping mechanism but, if I needed to go to the place sixteen times before feeling comfortable then this coping mechanism would go from functional to dysfunctional. It’s a matter of degrees.
So when the Pharisees in today’s Gospel get upset over the cleanliness practices of the disciples they are putting the cart of guidelines ahead of the horse of living. As Jesus says, if what comes out of your mouths is vile, than what goes into it doesn’t really matter. If your “coping mechanism” your “rule” your “guidelines” get in the way of being a compassionate, loving, responsible, caring person, then really what is the point?
Which brings us to our reading from the Epistle of James. A very short book, and one many people think should never have made it into the Bible in the first place, the excerpt from today is brilliant: “22 Obey God’s message! Don’t fool yourselves by just listening to it.” James is really onto something here---don’t just spew commandment after commandment, rule after rule, rather allow these guidelines to lead you into living a good, a Godly life.
According to James all we do that is good---the big stuff like helping the poor and the needy, standing up against injustice and caring for  our environment, to the small stuff like holding the door open for someone-- comes from God.
Think about this: when you’re driving to work or to school and wave a car into the lane ahead of you; when you help a classmate or a co-worker with a problem, when you lend your Wegman’s or Tops card to the person in front of you in line; when you thoughtfully choose the candidate to vote for based on what they say they will do for the needy of our community---every single good thing you do comes directly from God, directly from, as James’ puts it: above.
We are all as I’ve said before, INSTRUMENTS of God’s Love, of God’s Grace, of God’s Goodness. All of us. In all we do. All the time. Wherever we find ourselves— work, school, volunteering, recreating, socializing, God is at work, through us.
In all we do, God is there, USING us to further God’s purpose: to bring the entire world --all 7 billion of us-- within God’s Loving and enduring embrace. This is James’ message. Specifically he tells us behaviors to avoid: not listening, being quick to lose our temper and  lavishing in sordidness and behaviors to embrace, to cultivate:  
-- be quick to listen, slow to speak, and eager to care for those most vulnerable.
 The good news about James’ message is this---all of these things are within our reach. What parent doesn't want to be slower to anger with his or her children? What friend doesn't want to be a better listener? Aren't all of us in a position to offer help and support to those in need? James encourages us not just to think the faith, but to do it.”(David Lose) To allow the cart of guidelines to help, not hinder the horse of faithful living.
James is reminding us that our faith isn’t something to be exercised once a week on Sunday, within these walls but is, instead, something to be lived 24/7.
Which makes this such a good reading for Labor Day weekend. Because of faith is at work in all we do, including our labor. As theologian David Lose states: Sunday is not the pinnacle of the Christian week, it’s intended to serve and support our Christian lives the rest of the week–Monday through Saturday. On Sundays we’re refreshed and renewed through the Word of God, the Food of God, the forgiveness of God and the Fellowship of God. Then, once refreshed and renewed, we’re called, commissioned, and sent back into the world to work with God for the health of the people God has put all around us.” (David Lose)
God gives us work to do, tasks both large and small, so our Labor Day message, our everyday message is this:  go out into the world, seeking and serving God in all whom we encounter. We must Labor On, doing this work that is divinely inspired, God Driven and Holy. For only then will we hear our Creator sing, “Faithful servants, well done.” (“Come Labor On, Hymnal 1982)+

Ingest God's Love Aug 19,2012

This week my pals at the Lectionary Lab, affectionately known as “Two Bubbas and a Bible” shared the following story as told by Robert Coleman in his book Written in Blood:
“There was a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. For various reasons, the boy was the only donor whose blood could save his sister. The doctor asked, ‘Would you give your blood to Mary?’ The little boy’s lower lip began to tremble, then he took a deep breath and said, ‘Yes, for my sister.’
After the nurse inserted the needle into his arm, the little boy began to look very worried, then he crossed himself, finally he looked at the doctor and said, ‘When do I die?’”
Jesus said: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15: 13). The boy in this story had that love for his sister Mary. He was willing to die so she could live.
Ragaei (Rah-jhee) Abdelfattah (Ab-del-fatah), an Egyptian American, was on his second voluntary tour as a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, a job that took him to eastern Afghanistan to partner with local officials and the State Department envoy for nation building—Greg Lodinsky’s brother, Jeff-- to establish schools and health clinics and to deliver electricity. On Wednesday, August 8, as Jeff, Ragaei and three NATO security officers were walking to a meeting, two suicide bombers detonated their vest bombs as they approached the peacekeeping party. Ragaei flung himself over Jeff, losing his own life, while saving his friend’s.
Jesus said: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15: 13).
The boy in the story was willing to do this.
Jeff’s friend in Afghanistan did do this.
Would we? Would you? Would I? I don’t know.
Would God? Did God? As my father was fond of saying, You bet, God did it in spades.
“For God so loved the world that [God] gave [God’s] only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16).
This, my friends, is what Jesus is getting at in all this “Bread of Life” stuff we’ve been hearing the past few weeks.
God so loved the world that God came to us, in the flesh, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Fully human yet also fully divine, God gave Godself to us wholly and completely, out of God’s abundant never-ending always-unfolding love FOR US.
God, in the person of Jesus Christ, died on that cross for us. But not because we were bad and not because we were hopeless, but because God wanted to show us, to prove to us, that believing in God defeats death, once and for all. That believing in Jesus, the Son of God, assures us of everlasting—never-ending life.
This late summer dip into the Gospel of John gives us a glimpse into the overarching theme of the fourth gospel: that through a series of signs and wonders, Jesus is shown to be God in the flesh. John uses a number of metaphors to show his readers that Jesus is, indeed, God:  Jesus the one true vine, Jesus the one true bread, Jesus the living water which, when we drink it, will never leave us thirsty. John’s Gospel uses story after story to help us identify just who this Jesus is and why this Jesus is food, indeed.
From the first miracle at Cana in Galilee, when Jesus turns water into wine, to the plea of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well to “drink this living water, always,”(John 4:15) to the feeding of the five thousand, we are led to this place, to this penultimate lesson taught by Jesus and told to us by John: ‘I am the Bread of Life. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life’
These are tough words to hear and a difficult concept to grasp, which is why John took so many verses to drive this point home. What John is saying, story after story, is that God’s love, as given to us in Jesus the Christ can’t be explained…it can’t be rationalized…it can’t be figured out without diving in full-bore, headfirst. God’s Love as given to us through Jesus, must be experienced. And it is experienced through the act of receiving communion, of coming, as a community, to this altar, to be fed the bread and wine that has been infused with God’s Love. Because when we receive this bread and this wine, when we take and eat, we become filled…filled with the very Love God gave to us in Jesus the man….a Love that then sends us out to be this Love in the World.
On this altar, week after week, we take these creatures of earth human hands have made—bread and wine---and through our communal prayer of hope, our corporate faith in the promise of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit, they are turned into Divine Food.
 In the mysterious and holy ways of God the mundane is transformed into the magnificent, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary and our own flawed, doubting, questioning selves are turned into Disciples of Christ, Followers of God, Instruments of the Holy Spirit.
So, it’s up to us to come to this altar of God with hands outstretched, ready to be fed this Holy Food. Because, when we eat this Holy Food, when we ingest God’s love, we can be the people God asks us to be. Because by feeding on the Holy Food of Christ we are strengthened, emboldened and encouraged to lay down our life for another. Just like the boy in the story, just like Jeff’s friend and just like Jesus.
Amen.